Obama backs Japan in island dispute with China

But no breakthrough on trade talks

By

ColleenMcCain Nelson

Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo Thursday.

TOKYO — U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emerged from talks Thursday with a commitment to continue efforts on a broad trade deal and an affirmation from the U.S. that the countries’ mutual security treaty applies to islands at the center of territorial dispute.

The two leaders offered no major policy announcements after meeting, but both offered an upbeat assessment of the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

While Obama’s visit to Tokyo initially had raised the prospect of a breakthrough on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks, Abe said officials from both countries had agreed only that talks would proceed.

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Obama said he would leave negotiating to the negotiators but said access to Japan’s auto and agricultural markets remained sticking points. These are familiar issues that need to be resolved, he said. “I believe that point is now,” Obama added.

He also repeated that a chain of islands at the center of a territorial dispute between China and Japan are covered by the U.S.-Japan security treaty. His written comments to a Japanese newspaper on the islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in China drew attention here, but at the news conference Obama emphasized that the U.S. view wasn’t new.

“There’s no shift in position. There’s no red line that’s been drawn,” Obama said. “We’re simply applying the treaty.”

The president said the U.S. didn’t take a position on who held sovereignty over the islands, but he observed that historically the islands have been administered by Japan.

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